


One of the Brightest Stars

by JessieBaneTheDragon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28431177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessieBaneTheDragon/pseuds/JessieBaneTheDragon
Summary: Word count: 3660 (is that alot?) idkWarnings: major character death, sadness.A/n: I’ve thought about this idea for a while and heres what we ended up with, broke my heart writing it and if the title is a James Blunt song that just seemed to fit.
Relationships: CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives & Reader, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	One of the Brightest Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Word count: 3660 (is that alot?) idk
> 
> Warnings: major character death, sadness. 
> 
> A/n: I’ve thought about this idea for a while and heres what we ended up with, broke my heart writing it and if the title is a James Blunt song that just seemed to fit.

It was raining on coruscant, the day you met. Throwing water down on the smog infested streets creating a wet smoke that weaved its way into your hair and clothes. You were tempted to leave, what kind of night out was this anyways? Underground, illegal fighting that you’d been talked into attending on this horrible night.  
It was awful, chants from the crowd you couldn’t make out wanted someone dead, that much you could tell. Every sound of a blow landed resonated in your soaked bones. Of course your friends, whose morals you were seriously contemplating, wanted you to stay. Teases flew haphazardly of your weak disposition, ‘barbaric’ was the term you returned as you passed through the crowd to escape. Scoffing as the mob goes wild with another declared victor, stopping in shock as the loser is dragged out of the ring. Bouncers parting the sea of infidels and dumping the man at the bottom of a street light.  
You regarded him with a look of haphazard disgust, turning your head away from the sight and hugging the wall of the alley in the hopes of not being noticed.  
He wasn’t your problem. You’re not a medic. He’s not your problem. You’re not a medic. No matter how many times you tell yourself this guilt still eats away at you. But this man could be dangerous, you saw how they went at one another in that ring, it was dark out, and you were alone.  
But then again, so was he.

“S-s-should I call someone?” You stammered out, so quiet that he didn’t hear you over his own groaning. You try again. 

“Is - is there someone I should, I should call?” Under the glow of the blue hued street light his eyes almost seem yellow, and the way they meet yours has you taking a step back, retreating further away. Through the bloody nose, and split lip you look away. Eye contact made you feel exposed, like he was sizing you up for his next fight. As you look down you see clearly his attire.  
The symbol of the republic is hard to make out against the black material in the darkness. But the white plastoid that still covered his legs was unmistakable. And now, so was the earlier undeserenable chant. Kill the Clone.

He started to laugh at the realization that showed on your face, snickering through heaved breaths and the blood still coming out of his nose.  
“What? Never met a clone before?” He slurred agitated, looking you up and down, figuring out what kind of person runs from back alley fights. You winced as he pulled himself up with another groan and tried to start walking.  
“Maybe, maybe you should sit back down?” You asked, unsure of the situation, he had to be a clone, if the plastoid was anything to go by, so was his black curly hair. You saw him nod before falling into the wall and sliding down it, eyes closed in pain. You took a tentative step forward. Jumping as the blaster goes off to signal another fight starting, the crowd as wild as ever. When you look back to the clone propped up by the wall, he’d managed to pass out.

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
CT-27 5555 continues to display problematic empathetic traits _  
  
  
When it rained now, your heart ached for him. For that clone trooper who you staggered into your apartment wondering when the Grand Army of the Republic would come to your door to charge you with theft of military property. The stubborn man who tried to limp out of your life claiming he was fine, Fives who had so quickly intertwined his way into your heart. Who jumped out of his skin every time you touched him, no matter how light and soft you were, but clung to you in the night so tightly the sheets would leave marks on your skin.  
Echo, the citadel, everything he confided in you, a civilian he didn’t know, nor trusted. He snickered when you tried to tend to the bruises, and was so tightly knit unraveling the trooper took you hours. You came to memorize names, Rex, Kix, Jesse, Skywalker, Ashoka. And when he could finally stand without all colour leaving his face Fives pressed a shaking kiss to your knuckles as the only thanks he could give. __

__

____

____

And almost twenty rotations later, there was a knock at the door and there he was. Covered in mud, hair to goatee to boots. You ushered him in without thinking, and your heart broke when you asked what happened, he just shook his head. His light brown eyes glassed over and he jerked when you tried to pull him into your arms. Shushing his protests and coming into contact with the mud that had gotten through his soaked Blacks as you ran your hand into his hair. 

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
Retrial under Shaak Ti ends successfully, Domino Squad shipping out to Rishi moon. _  
  
  
“Cyare,” he gasped when you wrenched the door open.  
“Fives.” You threw yourself into him, he still had all his armour on, and you collided awkwardly with the plastoid. Hearing the sound of his helmet hitting the floor as he embraces you, burying his face within your hair. Only pulling back far enough for him to kiss you firmly. All your muscles that had been torn with anxiety finally let go as you relaxed in his arms. He was back, he was alive, he was safe now. It is a mystery to the entire 501st where the ARC Trooper goes when they finally land planetside. And you’re the only person in the galaxy that truly knows where he belongs.__

____

____

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
ARC-1409 K.I.A  
ARC-5555 remains in service _.  
  
  
Fives sobs in your arms the night he returns from that campaign. From Hardcase’s death, to his arrest, the betrayal and subsequent deaths that resulted from Krell. He throws his armour off that night, jaw trembling as he looks at his Kama and Pauldrons. __

____

____

“Lets run away.” You say, crying with him and holding his face in your hands. “Lets just go, no one has to know, we’ll go somewhere away from the war away from the republic away from it all.” He shakes his head. 

“Away from the war? Mesh’la there’s nowhere far enough in all the galaxy.” When he wakes in the morning to leave again, back to the Grand Army of the Republic, he stops, and pulls your forehead to his.  
“I love you with all of my being.” He says, more serious than you’re used to, and presses something into your hand. 

“Fives…” you stammer. It’s his graduation medal from Kamino, shining brightly in your palm.

“Keep it safe for me, yeah?” He smiles, “if i had time, i would’ve melted it down and made you a real ring…” You pull him forward into a burning kiss. You want him to stay longer, You want this war to be over, you want to be able to love him and for him to be able to love you, openly, freely, not as a weapon of the republic. 

“I love you.” You call to him as he walks out the door again. He gives you his trademark smirk. 

“I love you too.” He says

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
ARC-5555, stationed on Umbara was complicite in the execution of Jedi Master Krell. _  
  
You haven’t seen him in months. You come into your apartment dripping from the rain, only to collapse against the frigid durasteel door. He could be anywhere, even if he told you where the legion was dispatched that does not mean he wasn’t moved, transferred, or…  
Or dead.  
You weep. Taking gulps of stumbling breaths as reality hits you in an unforgiving wave as you realize, you may never know. Other militaries would contact those related to the deceased, but Fives, Fives would be another number in the kaminoan archives. Your grief manifests into a physical pain as your stomach intertwines and leaves you sobbing against the privy for the rest of the night.__

____

__

___  
_ _ _

_“Listen, if anything ever happens to me…” _  
__

____

____

_“Fives don’t-” _  
__

____

____

_“If it does” _  
__

____

____

_“Don’t say it please, it can’t, i won’t…" _  
__

____

____

_“Cyare-” _  
__

____

____

_“No! I won’t think of it, I won’t have you talking like that like, like…” _  
__

____

____

_“Okay Mesh’la, come’er. You know I always find my way back to you. But in case… in case I… get marooned, you find Rex, you find Captain Rex and give em hell for leaving me, okay?” _  
__

____

____

_“Okay. Okay, I love you, Fives.” _  
__

____

____

_“I love you too, cyare.” ___

____

____

__

__

  


You wait. One day after another, telling yourself that if he’s not back tomorrow you’ll go track the boys in blue down. If he’s not back tomorrow…  
Until finally, when Fives has been gone so long none of your sheets smell like him, even looking at his soap in the shower makes your crumble, and the elderly Twi down the hall starts asking where that man of yours got to because his rowdy laughter ‘aint keeping her up like she used to do with her sweetie back in the day.’

You tremble getting out of the speeder, forgetting to thank the driver as you hand them credits with the struggle of unpredictably jerky hands. The landing platform is busy, ships and speeders creating chaotic white noise along with the sounds of thousands of boots on durasteel. Picking one person out from the crowd is nearly impossible, how you’re supposed to find Captain Rex seems completely out of your depth. So you do the only thing that you seem capable of and wander slowly into a forgien world. Flashes of Kamas and pauldrons grip at your heart strings and solidify your determination. Colours of yellow, green and red painted armour make you wonder how they would have highlighted his eyes and hair differently had Fives been in another battalion.  
An engine backfire catches your attention as a trooper begins to yell at the other about fuel burns. 

“There’s one thing Bacta can’t mend and that's burns! Get that through that shiny bucket of yours!” The stern voice breaks through the commotion and your eyes catch his helmet where it lies perched on his hip. Just above a blue strip of paint on his thigh plates.  
You make a mad dash towards the trooper, unsteady feet sending you into the sides of another clone who you push away in your haze. 

“Wait!” You call to him, if your wits had been more present you would have recognised the hair style and medic insignia that catch your eye when he turns to face you. 

“Can I help you mam?” He asks with a covertly raised eyebrow. 

“Are you, 501st?” you pant. 

“Yes mam.” He responds coldly. 

“T-torrent company?” Maker, you’re out of shape. 

“... yes.” He- Kix, you realise, responds hesitantly. You straighten yourself up.  
“I need to speak with Captain Rex.”

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
ARC-5555 operated on CT-5385 against orders. Charges for treason - Status: Pending. _  
  
Kix is far less sauve in person. You know him to be sharp as a whip and a noteworthy smooth talker. But the stories Fives had told you on the nights neither of you slept, one laying on top of the other, listening to him talk for hours about his brothers while carding his hands in your hair, those stories painted a different picture to the man you see in front of you.  
This Kix keeps looking over his shoulder like he’s got a thermal detonator strapped to his back. And every time your eyes meet his, he pales slightly and looks away. Then again, you might be the strangest thing he’s ever seen, you stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of faces that are all alike.  
“Wait here.” Kix tells you before disappearing into a barrack. You give him a nod and fish the medal out of your pocket, squeezing it tight. The doors open with another woosh, and you spy Kix inside looking out like you’re a crazed Loth Cat. But he is blocked from your sight by another set of armour and a clone with a Buzz cut whose colour gives away his identity. __

____

____

“Rex...” You say from a memorized holo-still that you’ve got framed on your bedside table. His blonde buzz cut setting him apart from the other three men in the photo. Only one of whom you’ve got memorized down to every cell. 

“Who. Are. You.” Oh, he’s so much colder than Fives, and so much more hidden away. 

“I need you to tell me the location of one of your troopers.” You rush out, tunnel vision encasing your mind, heart so close to finding its other half. The Captain laughs at you. 

“And you think I'm going to give that information away to some civilian? What makes you entitled to one of my men?” You shake with rage.

“He’s my fiance.” You seethe, and he laughs at you again. Anger becomes liquid in your tear ducts. 

“Listen, I don’t know what must’a happen for that delusion to come to light and I don’t have the time for what I'm sure would be an entertaining explanation. So if you’ll excuse me.” He goes to push past you and your tears. 

“CT 27-5555.” You deadpan, you’ve always hated those numbers just as much as he did. He never was, and will never be, a number to you. The captain stops in his tracks and looks feral when he turns back to you. 

“What did you just say?” He grits out, and it makes you feel powerful. He may think he knows his men, he may think he knows the in and out of his company. But he doesn’t, you know Fives better than anyone in the galaxy, and right now that gives you power. 

“CT 27-5555 of Domino Squad, made ARC status after the battle of Kamino, fought at the citadel, on Umbara and hasn’t been planetside in months.” You see the panic in Rexs’ eyes, you’re dangerous now, you have insider information, a spy? A sepratist? Republic traitor? Any of these identities would make you an atomb bomb. 

“Who are you?” He says looking at you like a detonator. You’re crying in front of him, everyone looks tantalizingly similar to Fives, and yet they’re so different it's like a laser pointer and a Loth Cat, something that you just can't get under your hands. 

“Please.” You beg, “just tell me where he is.” You uncurl your hand, leaving indents in it from the points and engraved words of the medal, and the captain's face softens tenfold. He opens his mouth to say something when the doors woosh open again. 

“Captain, General Skywalker is- Maker!” Jesse exclaims upon seeing you. And you absentmindedly wipe away tears, Jesse is exactly as you pictured him.  
“How in the- you’re real! I knew it!” Rex looks more confused than before, but you, you can’t help but smile a sad smile at the memory.

  


_“I had an idea” Fives had said one night, hiding in one of the shower stalls just to be able to talk to you.  
“Well there is a first time for everything.” You teased, sitting on your bed in one of his old decommissioned undershirts, the very same one he’d been wearing the night you met.  
“That's disrespecting a republic soldier.” He commented, maker, you were feeling the distance tonight, you wanted him here, tackling you onto the bed for your snide comments and feeling his goatee when he kissed you. But all that would have to wait.  
“Soon to be an ex-soldier.” You reminded him, the war was coming to a close, and the second Fives had confirmation of sepratist surrender the two of you planned on taking off.  
“Cayre that’s a dangerous line of thinking.” He said, looking over his shoulder.  
“I know, I know, oh!” You realised all of a sudden. “I also had an idea!” Fives smiled at you, he was feeling the distance as well, seeing you in his GAR shirt was making him antsy.  
“You go first then.” He said, rubbing his chin where stubble was growing in.  
“EJ” You smiled hopefully, it was a risky suggestion and a far away thought, stemmed from pillow talk about future dreams. “As in-”  
“Echo Junior” He finished for you, looking at the hologram version of yourself that was so close yet so far from the real thing. “I love it.” He said after a long silence, something that always accompanied bringing up Echo. “he would’a hated it though, always hated the name, even if he did repeat orders like a damn-”  
“Like a damn echo.” You said with him, shifting on the bed. “Okay tell me your idea now.”  
“WHO’S THAT?” Came a familiar voice as you watched Fives whirl around as one of his brothers briefly appeared on the holo before disappearing again.  
“JESSE YOU BANTHA SHIT.” You heard Fives shout, before the holo-call disconnected and the image turned off all together, you couldn’t help but laugh.  
“Jesse.” You stated, coming face to face with the tattooed man for the first time. He was easy to recognize from the holograph and stories alone. ___

____

__

____

  


“Maker,” he said stunned and laughing “He always said you were just some holo-video.” Rex is looking between the two of you now. 

“Jesse, you know this woman?” He inquired immediately, still on edge. 

“Yes sir, no sir,” he stammered. “Well yes and no, Fives one night, he, well i…” 

“He caught him on a comm with me.” You supplied, Jesse nodding enthusiastically at your response. You knew there was no hiding it now. 

“I see.” Rex said thoughtfully. “Dismissed.” 

“But sir, I, she…” Jesse started, before catching a glare and mumbling a yes sir as he retreated back into the barracks like a Loth wolf with its tail between its legs. Rex looked at you again, and took you in. Scrutinizing your existence with a sigh when his eyes land on the metal in your hand. Eyes glossing over in a thousand yard stare. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, he said if he was missing to find you and I haven't heard from him in months…” You rambled, stopping when the captain raised his hand to rub his eyebrows. 

“Who else have you told?” He asked. 

“No one.” You breathed, “where is he.” You pushed, getting desperate now.

_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
ARC-5555 removed his inhibitor chip against orders. Request for termination - Status: Granted. _  
  
Captain Rex brings you inside the torrent company barracks, and sits you down to tell you. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. All of the warmth leaves you. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. You cover your face with your hands as you cry, your headache splitting your skull in two as you try to contain tears and noise. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. Fives will be buried stripped of his rank, medals, and labeled a traitor to the republic. Rex stands over you while you cry, unsure of what else to do. In all but a few moments he learns of your being, your devotion to his brother, and then, he widowed you.__

____

____

“Can I see him?” You all but beg, and with a nod Rex walks out of the room, leaving you with no choice but to follow him.

Rex... admires you. Yes, he does admire your will, to seek him out and risk your own life just to be able to love a clone. One of many million, who you had given your heart to. He admires your strength because when he leads you to the medbay morgue and you see the lifeless body, you do not cry. Rex stands guard at the door, and intrudes on this intimate moment that is a glimpse of the life that he never knew Fives had.

“Look at you, so this is what it takes for you to get a haircut eh?” You try the lame joke and run your hand over his cold face, stopping at the trademark goatee, tapping it lovingly.  
“And yet, you still have this.” silent tears begin.  
“I still set the table for two people, even when you’re gone.” You confess, “because I never know when you’re going to be back.”  
“Why didn’t we just leave?” You whisper to him, “you stubborn, stubborn man. Why didn’t we just go?” You lean in close and smooth his facial hair over, and over again. Crying, and cursing the republic. You hear clatter from outside, and turn to look, Rex is looking as well, he’s risking everything to let you say goodbye. His eyes meet yours and you know this has to be quick.  
“Say hi to him for me, say hi to Echo for me, and remember how much i love you? Please? Because I do, I love you so, so much Fives. More than I could ever say.” You place one last kiss to his forehead, knowing that this will be the last kiss you ever give him. And place the medal on his chest, the one that made him a soldier, that made you engaged and made your claim to his heart, real.  
“Keep it.” The voice from the doorway says, and it sounds so similar to his, you gasp. But when you turn the eyes won’t have a golden hue, the hair won’t feel the same, and the man will be a carbon copy on paper, but completely different in reality.  
Your lonely fingers curl around the medal once again, and lift it from his chest.

  


_Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report:  
ARC-5555 Terminated.  
No members of Domino Squad remaining.  
End of report. ___


End file.
